


Imaginary

by rinwins



Category: Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, POV Second Person, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 04:12:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinwins/pseuds/rinwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s real. She has to be. You’re almost definitely totally certain that your alternate-universe opposite-sex doppelganger girlfriend is real.</p>
<p>Okay, it sounds pretty silly when you put it like that.</p>
<p>(Or, I was reminded that the ladies are imaginary and imaginary things can't exist in the real universe, and my brain went 'FIX THIS.')</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imaginary

She’s real. She has to be. You’re almost definitely totally certain that your alternate-universe opposite-sex doppelganger girlfriend is real.

Okay, it sounds pretty silly when you put it like that.

NB lives in the imaginary universe and always has. She’s never been over into your universe, the ‘real’ one. Yes, technically you imagined her into retroactive existence, and _technically_ nothing from the imaginary universe should be able to survive in this one, but you are Pickle Inspector and if anyone can use the line between imagination and reality to play single-rope double-dutch, it’s you.

But you can’t convince NB that it’s probably perfectly safe for her to come through the skylight into your office. Not even for tea.

Instead you put the teapot and all the necessary paraphernalia onto a tray and carry it clattering through Sleuth’s office and out the window there, and the two of you sit on the fire escape and talk and laugh and try not to drop any more spoons. You’ve lost three that way already, and they’re never there when you go down to look for them. In the grand scheme of things you don’t mind that much.

\--

She has to be real. It’s the only logical conclusion. There are too many little clues that say she’s more than your imagination alone, small details and minor habits you never would have thought to include. She bites the right-hand corner of her lower lip when she’s thinking hard about something. You don’t think even your imagination was that specific. Her laugh is high and nervous like yours, but with a little snort in it that you love but could never have predicted. And there’s the way she holds both of your hands clasped together between hers, those times when you’ve had too much universe and you’re shaking too hard to do much else, and rests her forehead against yours until you feel like just one person again. It’s a perfect gesture. And you know you didn’t give it to her.

\--

It’s a windy spring day and you are standing each on opposite sides of PS’s office window, and NB looks even more nervous than usual. You give her your best attempt at an encouraging smile. Objectively you know it isn’t much, but she smiles weakly back at you and takes the hand you hold out to her through the window.

The wind pulls at her hair, her hat, the edges of her skirt. She takes a step toward you. Then a second, more hesitant one. The third step is more like a shuffle, and then she’s standing practically at the windowsill, and something as terrible as the entire span of time passes over her face and she pulls her hand back and retreats.

You’re scrambling through the window before you realize you’re moving at all. You catch up with her on the opposite edge of the fire escape. She shakes in the circle of your arms and you whisper that it’s okay, you don’t have to try it today, you don’t have to try it ever. She shakes, and you hold both of her hands between yours and hope that she’s enough like you for that to work. The wind plucks at both of you as you help her down the narrow stairs.

Later, you trace constellations between the faint freckles that cover her shoulders. You think you could imagine the position of every star in the sky, but it never would have occurred to you to put them down in miniature like this. She sighs, half asleep, and curls closer on her narrow bed, and you fold your angles carefully around hers and let the nighttime sounds of the imaginary city lull you both the rest of the way.

\--

It shouldn’t _matter_ if she’s real. If all matter is made up of particles split from the realm of imagination, there should be no division between the universes at all. There’s no good reason for the same material to behave in two contradictory ways, and if the laws of reality worked the way they ought to then you should be able to apply the full force of your belief to this conclusion and, thereby, make it true.

The laws of reality, however, consistently fail to work that way. You’d think the laws of reality could be less rude to someone they’re apparently made of.

When you catch yourself thinking passive-aggressive thoughts at subatomic particles, it’s usually time to take a break.

You focus on cases instead. You do still have some of those. You do _not_ go up to the roof and sit there dropping things through your skylight and trying to keep them from vaporizing through sheer force of will.  And you certainly don’t scream, hilariously or otherwise, when PS sneaks up behind you and catches you at it. Because you weren’t doing it in the first place. No matter _what_ he tells AD.

\--

It’s a summer night and you are both a little tipsy. Maybe more than a little. NB is a lady who can hold her liquor, you’ve discovered, but it means when you try to pace each other you both wind up several sheets to the wind.

That might be why you decided you absolutely _had_ to build an imaginary airship. And why you had to sneak in and collect the building materials from your office, and probably from PS and AD’s offices too. And it’s almost certainly why you’re both through Sleuth’s window before either of you realizes what you just did.

You break off the not-at-all-stealthy giggling you’re doing and stare at each other with some combination of triumph and horror. Then NB makes a dash for the window. But you’re between her and it, and she gets tangled in the arm you weren’t entirely aware of putting out into her path. And, because you have the beginning of an idea and this is the first way you can think of to implement it, you wrap the other arm around her too and kiss her.

Even after a year, that level of directness from you is surprising enough to stop her in her tracks. It isn’t enough to keep her distracted for more than a handful of seconds, but when she pulls back to look at you the expression on her face is searching instead of panicked. She gives you the slightest little nod and leans back in.

It isn’t, in all honesty, a great kiss. It’s tangled and awkward and you’re both too busy hanging on to each other like your continued existence depends on it, which, actually, it might. But you tell yourself firmly it doesn’t. You hold on to as much of her as you can reach and hope like hell you’re right. And if you’re not, you hope you’re holding her tight enough that when she goes up in smoke she’ll take you with her.

But she doesn’t.

Go up in smoke, that is. When you separate again, she’s still there, as solid as ever and so, so beautiful. You feel like you might cry. Instead you smooth her hair with shaking hands, and she catches them and holds them between hers.

\--

You still don’t know for sure if she’s “real”, but you do know now it doesn’t matter. You still have tea together sitting on the fire escape, because you’re used to it now and the view of the imaginary city is fantastic. But sometimes you take the tea tray clattering through the window and make PS share it with you, and AD too if he comes in to yell about something, and HD if she’s there visiting that day.

PS claims that he figured it out _ages_ ago, based on the very clear evidence that no one made entirely of his imagination would give him as much grief as HD does. HD makes a face and elbows him in the side, and AD rolls his eyes at both of them, and next to you NB covers her mouth to hide her laugh but you still hear the little snort in it.

And the world is, for now, as real as it needs to be.


End file.
